


I been this way ten years to the day

by fannishliss



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  There's plenty of time for conversation on the long drive back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I been this way ten years to the day

author: [](http://fannishliss.livejournal.com/profile)[**fannishliss**](http://fannishliss.livejournal.com/)   
title:  I been this way ten years to the day  
1313 words  
warning: spoilers for 6.1 -- ep coda  
rated-- pg13  for language  
disclaimer.  thanks to Sera Gamble for taking up the reins on this, my favorite show EVER, which, though it lives and moves and has being inside me, I nevertheless do not own.

summary:  There's plenty of time for conversation on the long drive back.

 

"It wasn't, you know," Dean said.

The Impala had her own brand of silence, the roar of her engine, her tires eating up road, the light of her headlights gliding like silk, unveiling the night ahead.

Lisa was wrapped up in that silence, looking out the passenger side window.  It was a long drive from Sioux Falls back to Cicero, and Ben had already fallen asleep in the back seat.

"Huh?"  she said.

Since Dean had come to get her and Ben from Bobby's house, she'd been really quiet.  Dean knew he'd hurt her, and wasn't that just par for the course, but he wondered if this time, maybe he'd be able to make it better.

"It wasn't all bad,"  Dean mumbled.

Lisa gave him a twisted smile and looked back to the window.

"I mean, some of it was great,"  he tried.

"Listen, Dean, don't let me down easy.  I'm a big girl, I can make it on my own,"  Lisa said angrily. Her eyes flashed at him in the darkness.

"I'm not! I know!"  Dean shook his head and tried again.

"Dammit, Lisa...  you're, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me.   I'm just sorry that for half a year, I was too messed up to see it, and the other half, I was too busy trying to save a brother who didn't even let me know he didn't need saving."

Lisa laughed, just a short breath.  Softly she said, "You never would've given up.  On Sam.  But the minute he comes back, you give up on us." 

"I'm not giving up," Dean said.

"That wasn't what I heard at your friend's house.  How long were you gonna leave us there, Dean! -- the rest of our lives?"  Lisa wasn't shouting, but her angry whispers tore into Dean's head like shots fired.

"I'm not giving up,  I was trying to let you out."  Dean was gripping the wheel, just trying to talk this through, not  something he'd ever been good at.  But give a man a year, he can change. 

"I didn't want to be let out!"  Lisa hissed.

"Okay, you're just gonna have to accept that I find that hard to believe.  Come on -- you're beautiful, smart, generous, you own a business, you've got a great kid.... why do you even want me around? --aside from the thing with Ben." 

Lisa took a deep breath and let it all out.  Dean just had to wait, trying to keep the pedal off the metal, while she did it again. 

"I thought we'd been over this, Dean," she said. 

"Apparently I'm an idiot,"  Dean shot back, rolling his eyes just a little.

"I'm sorry, but sometimes you just are," Lisa said, glaring at him. 

"Well, enlighten me then,"  Dean bitched.

"You told me, that time, that you imagined, with me, you could be happy."  Lisa's voice broke, and Dean felt like scum, but he had to hear her out.

"Yeah?" he encouraged.

"Well, that's how I imagined it, too -- with you."

Dean frowned, but he couldn't think of what to say.

"When we met, I was out of college, and you were just nineteen, and I was fooling around, travelling, going out with whoever caught my fancy, footloose and free, you know?"

"I guess,"  Dean said.  He'd spent his whole life on the roam, but not by choice. Not really.

"But I guess, meeting you, it made a mark on me.  I don't know if I believe in, you know, love at first sight, or whatever, but the two of us, we just clicked, remember?  I never wanted you to leave."

Lisa's voice had trailed off again into a whisper.  The Impala cradled them through  the night as memories of a long weekend a lifetime ago streamed silently through each mind.

"After you, no one else ever measured up.  And then, Ben came along, and that was that.  Being a mom, it was a whole new world."

"I can imagine," Dean said.

"Can you?" Lisa shot back. "I mean, I know you practically raised Sam yourself, but you were a kid.  You couldn't really understand the responsibility that I felt, bringing a life into the world on my own.  I thought about you, Dean, goddammit, I thought about you all the time."

"I'm sorry," Dean said.

"You say that very well," Lisa responded bitterly, "like you've had a lot of practice."

"What do you want me to say, Lisa?  I want...  I want to make it better." 

"How can you, Dean?  Sam's back.  You're gonna Hunt, you're gonna go with him.  I'd be a fool to think otherwise."

"I'd never put you and Ben in danger, Lisa,"  Dean started, but Lisa cut him off.

"I don't care about that!    I don't want you staying with us out of some misguided sense of loyalty.  Like you owe us or whatever.  I want... "  but she wouldn't let herself say it.

Dean took his right hand off the wheel and reached for Lisa.  Her strong, capable hand was hot in his.  She was crying. He was hurting her, more and more.

"Lisa, the things I've been through, the things I've done, I don't know if I'm even capable of being the man you deserve.  But if you let me, I swear, I want to try.  I don't know if I can stay out.  The Hunt, it's like, there's that part you have to play in the world.  It's too much, sometimes, to just turn away."

Lisa sighed, and her hand gripped at his.  "It's not even that I don't want you to Hunt, Dean.  Saving people is part of who you are.  I just want, I want the house we bought together, I want you to think of it, us, as home."

Dean gripped her hand back, but not so tight as to hurt.  He'd done enough of that already.

"One thing I know, is, you deserve to be happy.  You've given me everything.  Without you, I'd be dead right now, no question.  I just wanna, I want to do right by you, Lisa."

"You do,"  Lisa whispered.  "You make me happy just by being there.  But not if it's just some kind of duty, whatever.    I gotta believe I can make you happy too."

Dean felt Lisa's hand, hot and miserable in his.  He looked into the blankness of his heart.  He could see how far he'd come since Sam fell back into that pit, but he still had such a long way to go.  The shock and numbness of Sam's return still hadn't sunk in, or worn off, or whatever it was gonna do.  He knew what he owed to Lisa.  He knew that much.  He knew he loved Ben.  And wasn't that a kicker, that he'd  grown so quickly to love the boy, when he still didn't know what he felt about the amazing woman who'd brought him into the world.

"Happiness and my life are like mutually incompatible," Dean sighed. "But if I could imagine myself happy, I swear, Lisa, it's still with you."

Lisa wiped tears from her face with her sleeve, but her left hand squeezed Dean's, determined.

"I remember you, you know?  From back then.  Young, happy.  Untamed, undefeated.  I remember you so clearly."

Finding a voice in his aching throat, Dean answered, "You too.  You're still just as beautiful as the night we met."

Lisa laughed again.  She always had laughter, Dean had found, no matter what.

"You'll never be that kid again, the one I half fell in love with.  But the man you've become, I love him even more."

It wasn't a word they tossed around.  Dean couldn't say it back.  But he lifted her hand to his mouth, and kissed it, and apparently that was something she was ready to accept.

 


End file.
